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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Maternity Leave and a Focus Wall

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all! I have been enjoying my time off from school and getting a chance to relax, sleep in and visit with family. With a week left of break I have found myself thinking about school. With only about 3 months left until I get to meet baby Lily, I have been making mental lists of everything I need to get done before I go on maternity leave. I keep telling myself that I still have time to get everything done and then I run though my list and it freaks me out a little bit. Here is the list that I have running through my head about what I need to get done before leaving my little ones with the substitute.

1. Map out the last two months of school

2. Clean and organize my room

3. Plan the end of the year party for the kiddos

4. Create my Focus Wall

5. Create everything needed for the focus Wall

6. Write out rough lesson plans for the time I am gone

7. Find or create any resources needed for the time I am gone.

Here is what I have so far. I am sure there a lot more things I should be thinking about. I would love some ideas and advice on how to prepare for Maternity leave. This is my first child so I am pretty clueless on what needs to be in place and how much I can place on the shoulders of the person who will be taking over for me for the last two months of school.

One thing that I know I want to get going as soon as break is over is redoing my Focus Wall. I have a large bulletin board near my reading table that is meant to showcase what is being currently taught in science, social studies, math and reading. This I have to say has fallen by the wayside. I have been looking at Focus Walls all day today and I have found a few that I am going to use as inspiration for my wall. I am going to start by making it a Literacy Focus Wall only! I plan on using it to display the current spelling words, vocabulary words, reading skill, writing skill, and the grammar. With this being said here are a few examples I have found. I will do my best to give credit to the correct person but all I did was Google focus walls so I am not sure if the links take me to the person who created the wall or not.

I would love to hear if you have a focus wall and what you include on yours. Leave a link to your blog if you have a posting about Focus Walls. Again I would love input on getting this up and running in my classroom!!!

I have been doing the same thing. My baby is due the beginning of March and I have got to get things in order before my interim. One piece of advice that I've heard from friends, just have your classroom organized and have your weekly schedule set. Let it be your interim's class and let them be her kids for the next couple of months. It takes a lot of pressure off of you and gives her a little more freedom to do what she needs to do. I've worked really hard with my kiddos this first semester to get them where they need to be so hopefully that makes her job a little easier. Sorry for the long comment, that's just been helpful to me =)

Awww! I have a Lilly. She is 3 now. I was only going to miss about a month on maternity leave (had her early May). I just made a big binder. Basically did a daily schedule for each day of the week and then included the handouts to use for each week. I had an assistant that knew what was going on so I didn't have to worry that much about it though. I did hear that she didn't follow my plans at all so I was a little PO'ed that I took the time to do them! Good luck!

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About Me

I am a second grade teacher in Knoxville, TN. I love my job and teaching is truly my passion and life's purpose. This blog is a way for me to share my love of teaching with others who share this amazing profession with me.